Rayman 2: The Great Escape (Nintendo 64) review

" Rayman 2 looked extremely awesome in the commercial on television. After begging my way into getting a nintendo 64, I decided this game was one I really wanted. This game was a pricy $60 when I got it, and was easily the most expensive game I got that Christmas. This game is kinda similiar to games like Banjo-Kazooie and Donkey Kong 64, but there are no mini games, just constant searching. This leads to semi entertaining play, and a game that after a while gets pretty repetitive.
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Rayman 2 looked extremely awesome in the commercial on television. After begging my way into getting a nintendo 64, I decided this game was one I really wanted. This game was a pricy $60 when I got it, and was easily the most expensive game I got that Christmas. This game is kinda similiar to games like Banjo-Kazooie and Donkey Kong 64, but there are no mini games, just constant searching. This leads to semi entertaining play, and a game that after a while gets pretty repetitive.

STORY (8/10): For a childish game, the story is not bad at all. A band of pirates has taken your home into their custody and broken the 1000 lums that control your land. They have imprisoned thousands of friends on a ship. Your friend Globex gets himself captured to deliver you a power from your sorceress friend, which helps you escape and send you on your mission to find four masks to free a great power, and begin a war with the pirate band. I have yet to view the very ending, but the story itself is pretty good.

GRAPHICS (15/20): The graphics are not too bad, although like many expansion pack games, the extra pack does nothing to help it. I always wondered what was the purpose for that expansion pack, when really no game takes advantage of it (besides Donkey Kong 64, Perfect Dark, and Zelda: Majora's mask). However the characters all look interesting, and Rayman looks much more realistic then all of his other games. All in all, without the expansion pack the game is not bad at all graphically wise.

SOUND (6/10): This is the hardest category to rate, cause most the time you cannot remember the music in a game, unless it was spectacular. I believe that the music was fitting, but nothing stupendous, as with alot of games. The sound affects however consist of tinging noises when you hit an object with your powerball, and the little shoot noise when you first shoot it off. Nothing too spectacular in the sound department, but enough to give it an above average rating.

GAMEPLAY (25/45): The game consists of level after level searching for 50 lums. There is one level where you waterski which is pretty fun, one level in which you ride by flaming barrels, many levels where you ride these little missiles, and many levels where you slide down slopes. The rest of the gameplay is just jumping and shooting through many levels. Now with the slope parts the game automatically jumps for you, so this if you don't try to get the lums you can put down your controller and still get through. Also the controls are horrible with the missiles, cause you have to position yourself many times so you don't run into a wall off the start, and this is hard cause the missiles never choose to stop in a practical spot. The few masters in this game are very easy, except the final one who is horrible. The shooting is also easy against the simple pirates by using a ''Z'' targeting method similiar to Zelda. The gameplay is relatively fun at points, but become extremely repitive and boring later on in the game.

REPLAYABILITY (5/10): The game itself is not too fun to replay, but there are 999 lums to find throughout the game and this is kinda entertaining. The only problem is if you miss a lum in the one level that takes about 5 hours to beat, and it took me a long time to finally get myself up to go through that ENTIRE level again just to get those 8 lums. To actual play the game again all the way through however, is a possibility, but not after a long break.

DIFFICULTY (4/5): The difficulty is pretty well controlled. The only exceptions are the labyrinth level that is extremely long and boring. It is not too difficult except after 2 hours of the same play, you will lose grip of controls and start crashing into everything. The other exception is the deathly hard robot master. If there is actually a way to defeat him I'd love to know. You have to ride around on a missile and shoot at him, but if you crash once you have to start over (what fun...). The difficulty of the actual levels get harder level by level and really never exceed the difficulty level.

OVERALL (63/100): Rayman 2 had an appealing storyline, and a relatively fun gameplay to begin with. However after a while it does get boring, and unless you are like me and loves to beat all possible games you may even give up on it. I still have the game, and even when I beat it I will not sell it, cause it is pretty fun to pick up for a few levels to fly through. I would recommend a pickup if you want amusing entertainment, and you have enough money to afford multiple games.

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